Page 92 of Off-Limits as Puck

The tears come without warning, silent and useless, the first I’ve shed since childhood. They taste like salt and regret and the slow recognition that some losses can’t be fought.

Some things end no matter how hard you want them tocontinue.

Outside, Vegas glitters on, indifferent to broken hearts and ruined careers, promising tomorrow’s dreamers the same lies it promised me two years ago.

But tonight, in this room near where everything began, I let myself mourn what we were.

And what we’ll never be again.

34

Reinventing yourself turns out to be more expensive than advertised, and Phoenix is a terrible place to do it.

I’m sitting in my studio apartment—all four hundred square feet of it—sorting through client intake forms that feel like playing house with my psychology degree. The space is aggressively neutral: beige walls, beige carpet, beige everything, like someone tried to design personality out of existence. It matches my current state perfectly.

Six weeks since I fled Chicago with three suitcases and what was left of my dignity. Six weeks of pretending Dr. Chelsea Clark never existed, that I’m just Chelsea now—private practice therapist helping soccer moms work through anxiety and college kids navigate relationship drama.

It’s honest work. Necessary work. And it’s slowly killing what’s left of my professional soul.

“So tell me about your mother,” I say to Jennifer, my two o’clockappointment, because sometimes therapy really is that cliché.

“She’s fine. Supportive. Maybe a little too involved in my dating life.” Jennifer shifts in her chair—the one expensive piece of furniture I bought, because if you’re going to rebuild your career from scratch, you might as well have good seating. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“No?”

“I’m here because my boyfriend doesn’t want to have sex anymore, and I think it’s because I gained fifteen pounds over the holidays.”

And there it is. The slow descent from treating professional athletes with complex trauma to discussing holiday weight gain. This is what my doctorate gets me now—fifty-minute sessions about sexual frequency and body image issues that I could solve in ten minutes if clients actually wanted solutions instead of validation.

“Have you talked to him about this directly?” I ask, scribbling notes I’ll probably throw away later.

“I dropped hints. Wore his favorite lingerie. Joined a gym.”

“But have you asked him what’s going on?”

“What if he says yes? What if he admits I’m too fat now?”

“And what if he doesn’t? What if this has nothing to do with your weight?”

Jennifer stares at me like I’ve suggested she perform surgery on herself. “But what else could it be?”

He could be dealing with work stress. Performance anxiety. Depression. A million things that have nothing to do with your body and everything to do with his own insecurities.But I don’t say that. Instead, I guide her through the process of having an actual conversation with her boyfriend like it’s revolutionarytherapy instead of basic human communication.

When she leaves, I have twenty minutes before my next client. I use them to stare out my single window at the parking lot of a strip mall that houses my office between a nail salon and a tax preparation service. This is my view now. Asphalt and disappointment.

My phone buzzes—the new phone, with the new number that only six people have. A text from Dr. Rutledge, my former thesis advisor who helped me set up this practice.

Rutledge:How are you settling in? Any interesting cases?

Me:Define interesting. Today I’m counseling someone about holiday weight affecting her sex life.

Rutledge:We all start somewhere. Remember, you’re building something new.

Building something new.Right. Because what I had before was just rubble waiting to be cleared away. Never mind that it took eight years of education and two years of specialized training to get where I was. Never mind that I was good at what I did, before I let my personal life contaminate my professional judgment.

My three o’clock is late, which gives me time to check news feeds I’ve been avoiding. Old habits die hard, and apparently masochism is one of mine.

ESPN: “Hendrix Signs Two-Year Deal with Boston Blizzards”

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